It is hard to avoid bad news about China’s sputtering recovery no matter where you look these days. But President Xi Jinping, the man in charge of the world’s second-largest economy, appears barely perturbed.

The only recent public event on the economy that Xi has attended was a meeting on July 21 with a group of prominent party supporters. The official summary of his speech emphasized the need to trust the top leadership’s judgment and provide “political guidance” to private entrepreneurs. Nothing in his statement indicated any urgency for new policies. He also called a Politburo meeting three days later to discuss the economy, but failed to produce any specific measures to boost investor confidence.

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